As vehicle technology advances, the traditional automotive optical mirror configuration (i.e., consisting of a center rear-view mirror mounted inside the car, plus a driver-side mirror and a passenger-side mirror mounted outside the car) can be replaced with electronic mirrors (i.e., video screens displaying video data). Electronic mirrors offer several advantages over traditional optical mirrors. A rear-view camera mounted behind the car can provide a clearer unobstructed view of what is outside and behind the car. The rear-view obstructions caused by the interior car roof, pillars, rear seats/headrests, passengers, and trunk/hatch (i.e., storage) area would be eliminated. Side mirrors take up physical space extending about 8 to 10 inches further than the sides of the car body. Cameras replacing the side mirrors can take up much less space (i.e., about 1 to 2 inches), while offering less aerodynamic drag and are less prone to hitting (or being hit by) other objects. Cameras can also provide the driver with clearer images that are better exposed under varied lighting conditions compared to optical mirrors, which have images with insufficient contrast that can be too dark or too bright.
Electronic mirrors with three separate cameras along with a computer display panel that replace optical mirrors are often referred to as an eMirror. For an eMirror, there are issues of how to present the three camera views of visual information to the driver. One presentation option displays the entirety of each camera view tiled together on the eMirror display. However, tiling the camera views results in a view that is disjointed, separated, and/or has redundant image information that the driver has to visually sort through and process, resulting in a cluttered and distracting display.
In another presentation option each of the 3 camera views undergo some warping and scaling, and are then placed into assigned areas where they are stitched together to become the final display. The scaling results in a large ‘invalid’ area that does not correspond to any camera view. The invalid area might have a silhouette of a car representing the ego car drawn as an overlay to provide spatial reference relative to other vehicles/objects in the scene portrayed by the valid camera areas of the eMirror display. The scaling also results in a rear view area that is significantly smaller than the side view area. The reason for the small rear view and the large invalid area is due to the distance difference between the mounting locations of the rear camera and the side cameras.
It would be desirable to implement an eMirror with 3-in-1 stitching by non-rectilinear warping of camera views.